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5 years ago … I met Vince Flynn at a book signing at the Borders (which is now gone) for “American Assassin” on Thursday, October 21st, 2010.

It was my first time meeting Vince, and in fact, at that time, I never read any one of his books. So, I felt a little out of place, but, I got over that quickly. Got the chance to make some small talk with him, and he said he liked my shirt, which was my Dale Jr. sweatshirt.

He was incredibly nice!

I was planning on purchasing all of his books up to the newest one. But, they didn’t have them all. So, I just went home with my signed AA.

That weekend, while I was still working at the grocery store, after work Saturday, I stopped in at Borders and picked up “Term Limits”. Read it pretty quickly, and LOVED it. I then would spend the next months upon months purchasing the hardcovers from Amazon, read them, then bought a few more. My goal was to get caught up with the series before “Kill Shot” was released. I came close, but had to skip “Pursuit of Honor” so I could read AA before KS, since they were both prequels. I was lucky enough to receive an ARC of KS, which I took with me on vacation. That year, the book was released late, in February instead of the usual Oct/Nov schedule due to Vince having cancer, and my vacation started on the Tuesday KS was released. I was so excited seeing the book at the MSP airport that morning.

But, more importantly, the night after meeting Vince, I went on twitter and tried to search for him. No luck, he wasn’t on it. So I searched for any fan sites. Nope, no luck there either. I had a few friends running some fan twitters for some tv shows, so I thought, what the heck, I’ll start one. It would be a great place for the fans to connect on. And that Sunday night, 3 days after meeting the man himself, @VinceFlynnFans on twitter was born.

It’s been 5 years. Lots of ups, and downs, including losing Vince to cancer. I remember being so excited about having 30 followers (aka #assets, because we are Mitch Rapp’s assets in the field) within the first couple weeks, and today we are nearing 6000!!!

It’s not just about the numbers though. I have met some very good friends through it, and still do! And I’ve also had the chance to interact and meet some fantastic authors as well (I won’t name drop, but they know who they are, not that they will likely read this, but that’s ok!) and still am today!! And I totally believe that if I didn’t choose to go to that book signing, meet Vince, start the twitter, that I would never have had come across them. Even if I did go to the signing and started reading Vince’s incredible books, I strongly believe that I wouldn’t have come across the other authors if I didn’t have the VFF twitter. It was the fellow fans that recommended them first.

Yes, the twitter is mine, but I have never considered it to be fully mine or just mine, but rather it is all (the fans, Vince, his publisher, etc) of ours. Because it isn’t just about me running it, since I run it in his name (with simply ‘fans’ after it). It’s Vince’s name. For the most part, I am representing him. So, I do take it very serious, like a job if you will. And, in my experience in running the twitter, I must say, Vince Flynn has the greatest fans!

A couple weeks ago at the Vince Flynn Tribute Event / National Book Release of “The Survivor” by Kyle Mills (which I need to blog about, and I apologize I haven’t yet), I got a lot of Thank You’s. Which was a bit awkward for me, since saying You’re Welcome didn’t seem like the correct response for me to give. LOL And I’m not the type of person who likes to get compliments of any kind.

But, I just want to say Thank You.

Thank You to everyone who has supported me. You don’t know just how much it has meant to me. And a huge Thanks to David Brown and Dan Flynn who have been with me pretty much on Day 1!